What effects will new technological developments in nanotechnology and other fields like cognitive science and biotechnology have on human development? This was one of the main questions posed by attendees at a recent conference held at Oxford University and attended by Christopher Newfield, a research group leader at the CNS-UCSB.

The conference was held March 14-17, 2006 at the Said Business School with the provocative title “Tomorrow’s People: The Challenges of Technologies for Life Extension and Enhancement.” The meeting brought together an international group of scholars interested in topics such as science policy, transhumanism, and the governance of future technologies. It was sponsored by the James Martin Institute of Science and Civilization, a philanthropically-funded center whose goals include identifying “science and technology issues critical in shaping the future of world civilization.”

Newfield, whose research at the CNS is concerned with technology transfer and laboratory creativity, reported that a main focus of  “this important and agenda-setting conference was human enhancement – new and imminent forms of enhancement of our physical and mental powers. I very much liked this optimism and the enhancements.  And yet the conference raised the question of whether our societies are willing to use the full range of our capacities –  socio-cultural as well as technological –  to make real enhancement possible over the long haul.”

In considering the issue of technological enhancement of human abilities and the effects  these might mean for our “humanness,” Newfield noted that attendees and speakers seemed to be aware of both the technical and the socio-cultural sides of the issue. “That’s exactly why I think the conference plot was so interesting,” Newfield noted, “The conference raised the key question of what we, the physical and the socio-cultural scientists, are going to do about the two polarities that mark the larger issues.”